Page:Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays The Second Edition.pdf/13



''HE little Poems which are here called Sonnets have, I believe, no very just claim to that title: but they consist of fourteen lines, and appear to me no improper vehicle for a single sentiment. I am told, and I read it as the opinion of very good judges, that the legitimate Sonnet is ill calculated for our language. The specimens Mr. Hayley has given, though they form a strong exception, prove no more, than that the difficulties of the attempt vanish before uncommon powers.'' Some very melancholy moments have been beguiled, by expressing in verse the sensations those moments brought Some